Welcome, welcome, welcome. You'll find that in general we're an honest but respectful lot, and there are a few here who can cut you down at the knees, rebuild you, and save your mix... and you'll come out of it amazed how much you've learned.
I'm not one of those
but I can definitely help you out here... pretty much all of the ubiquitous newbie mistakes (that we ALL have made) are at work in this mix, and I went through this stage a few short months ago.
Briefly, the main problems I'm hearing are EQ misuse (over-use or possibly under-use, it's hard to tell without loading up the unprocessed project file), an unfocused low end, and unfocused stereo image. There are some pretty serious instrument imbalances, too, but that's very possibly because from what I'm hearing, you attempted to mix the songs without "cleaning" the tracks first. No worries... this happens to EVERYONE, and once you get past this hurdle, you're halfway there.
So aiming for breadth and not depth, here are a few tips to get you headed in the right direction:
1. Clean up your tracks BEFORE you start mixing.
You can merge color-coding, bussing, and any sort of preparatory work you like into this step. Even on the most immaculately recorded tracks, which may sound very good in isolation, there's a lot of sonic data you don't need. One of the main issues I'm seeing on this score is that you're not using enough high-pass filtering if any at all. With the exception of the foundation bass instruments (bass and kick mostly), most mix engineers will recommend you filter out the low end off of almost every track starting around 80 hZ on up. In Reaper, the EQ displays a very crude spectral analysis that'll give you and idea where the garbage low end is happening and how much you can take out. In isolation this can make some tracks feel a little thin, but when you unsolo and allow all the instruments to sound together, you'll find that everything feels cleaner, tighter and more focused. The bass needs to be driving the low end, and the glockenspiel has no business getting in his way, ja?
Also be on the lookout for any resonances. Many sounds you'll encounter will have excess frequency buildup, frequently from 250 to around 700 hertz. Often this sounds murky on the tracks in isolation (listen for the murkiness in the female vocal on this song... you'll see what I mean) and sometimes you won't notice it at all, but when 10 out of 15 tracks have buildups in this area, you'll find it nearly impossible to balance the song, because sonic data that the tracks don't need to do their job is swamping the things we want to hear.
At this stage of the game, you should be doing what's called subtractive EQ... getting rid of the stuff you DON'T need so it doesn't get in the way of what you do. You'll also find that later on, you can get tracks a lot louder without clipping when this step is performed with due diligence.
2. Get a rough balance AFTER you clean.
Some newbies try to do this first... Lots of tracks have excess low end and resonances, especially when they were close mic'd, so you'll find that the perceived loudness changes when you start trimming the fat and you'll have to balance everything all over again to get it sounding right.
3. Never boost if you can get what you need with a cut.
This applies to EQ and track volumes equally. Bass doesn't seem loud enough? Why turn it up and chew up all that headroom when you could just turn everything else down until the bass is in place? With EQ, boosts are even more dangerous. If an important frequency isn't standing out enough in one instrument, it's probably better to trim that frequency down in another instrument first to see if that gives the breathing room you need. And if you have to boost, remember that boosting on one instrument usually necessitates a cut on another in around the same place, or you could wind up with those deadly frequency buildups on the master bus I was talking about earlier, which can make life a lot harder and tempt you to EQ the master bus... which is probably not the best idea until you've got a more solid understanding of EQ.
4. Take FREQUENT breaks.
Your brain is designed to adjust to small changes in the way things sound for various reasons, but it's a killer in the EQ phase. When you're EQing in the very beginning when your instincts are still nonexistent, stop what you're doing every 10 minutes, walk away, grab a cuppa, walk the dog, change the baby or something, just for a few minutes, then return and listen to your adjustments. I recommend you download Voxengo SPAN, also, which will give you a very detailed and customizable real-time frequency graph that you should refer to constantly to train your ears. This sucks in the beginning, but you'll last longer as you build up your instincts, and eventually, you'll learn that when your brain is telling you something that SPAN is disagreeing with, it's time for a break.
5. Spread things out AFTER EQing.
It's too easy to pan things out to get instruments out of eachothers way, so this can lead you to be neglectful of EQ. This will lead once again to those darned frequency buildups that will blow up your house, eat your goldfish and give you syphillis (this is serious business) and it'll also make your mix sound like poop-soup if you play it in mono mode. I think your mix could've used more processing in general... lots more cleanup, EQ, and panning to allow you to balance everything out.
6. Use compression for its intended purpose.
This one is probably a conversation for after you show us your cleaned up mix, but EQ, panning and compression are the 3 most important processing tools in your arsenal, so it deserves a quick mention. After you clean up, EQ, and pan, are you still finding that some parts just aren't fitting quite right? Maybe the loudest notes are perfect, but the quietest notes are dropping out? The dynamic range is too large, most likely, so you might need a bit of compression to bring those dips into balance. Compress as lightly as you can (for now, until you've learned some more) but don't be afraid of it. Some people say compression like it's a bad word, but the most important thing in the end is balance.
Until you've got this part down, don't worry about the creative stuff. 95% of mixing is getting the tracks to sit where they belong. Try to carve out a spot where you feel the instrument belongs, and use these tools to fill it nicely and neatly, and DON'T WORRY about what the tracks sound like in isolation... nobody's going to know when the mix is spot on.
Try and revise this tune with these tips in mind and let us see what you come up with. I think you'll be surprised how much better it sounds, even if you can't quite put your finger on why.
Check out
www.therecordingrevolution.com and find the "5 minutes to a better mix" series. He'll go through all of these basic tips and many more (there are over 90 videos!) and he only uses stock standard plugins and techniques that will work in any DAW.
Once again, welcome! Looking forward to learning together!
Pauli
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
I'm looking forward to this, and hope to be able to come up with something that sounds a little cleaner and lighter fairly soon.